MinnPost

Immigration, race, women’s issues and a divided nation are among the themes of the History Center’s new exhibition — about World War I. Opening Saturday, April 8, following the 100th anniversary today of America’s entry into the war, on view through Sept. 4 (after which it tours to history museums around the country), “WW1 America” aims to help us understand ourselves and our nation today. Events that seem so long ago and far away are brought into focus by stories, images, multimedia presentations, music, and original artifacts, including a deck chair from the Lusitania.

A re-created newsstand presents news about the war in Europe before America stepped in. A Red Cross ambulance is the scene of stories from soldiers and nurses on the battlefield. Artifacts and images show the impact of new technologies, including poison gas. A walk-through victory arch contrasts the civic celebrations of 1919 with the bombings and riots of the time. A re-created hospital ward is a reminder of the flu pandemic that killed more people than the war.

Spanning the years 1914-1919, “WW1 America” is a big exhibit with a lot going on, including many public programs and events. A live stage show at the Fitzgerald on Friday night (see the picks below) will be followed by Saturday’s opening day with a history talk, costumed reenactors, live music, storytelling and family activities. (Veterans and active military get in free on opening day.) During the exhibit, Minnesota artist David Geister will paint a massive mural (8 feet tall, 30 feet long) featuring 100 people from the World War I era who influenced the making of modern America; you can watch him at work on opening day from 1-4 p.m. (Weigh in on which five people should be most prominent in the mural.) An online “WW1 Daybook” blog will feature a different exhibit-related item from the Historical Society’s collections each day.

A tremendous resource in our midst, the History Center keeps us honest about our past. With exhibits like “WW1 America,” it reminds us that we have much to learn from where we’ve been about who we are. If you go, make time to visit “Penumbra Theatre at 40,” about our nationally important African-American theater, and “Open House: If These Walls Could Talk,” a life-size re-creation of a house on St. Paul’s East Side that has been home to scores of immigrant families.

Plug into National Poetry Month

It’s National Poetry Month, right now, and it’s easy to be part of the largest literary celebration in the world, begun in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets. Just read a poem, or write one, or go someplace to hear other people read theirs.

The academy will happily send you a free poem-a-day if you sign up here. Each weekday, you’ll get a brand-new, previously unpublished poem, with a brief note from the poet. If you don’t want to read it yourself, you can click on a link to hear the poet read it. Weekends are for classic poems.

Knopf, which publishes many fine poets, will also send you a poem-a-day by one of its authors, if you sign up here.

This year’s Poetry Month began with the death of Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko on April 1. Yevtushenko was once so popular his readings filled stadiums. His poems were published in Pravda and memorized and recited by taxi drivers. After his death, many people revisited two of his most famous poems, “The Heirs of Stalin” and “Babi Yar.”

Tonight (Thursday, April 6) at Coffman Memorial Union: Timothy Snyder: “The Politics of Mass Killing: Past and Present.” The Holocaust has defined countless lives and reshaped our world. Snyder, a historian, author and Yale history professor, has spent years researching why and how it happened. This lecture – the keynote for an international symposium – is based on his book “Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning.” 7 p.m. in the Coffman Theater. Free and open to the public; register here.

Tonight (Thursday, April 6) at Dreamland Arts: “A Thousand Cranes.” Kathy Welch directs Kathryn Schultz Miller’s play based on the book “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes,” about the young Hiroshima victim who started a worldwide peace movement. Told through Ivey winner Green T Productions’ stylized-movement-based storytelling, with original music by Miriam Goldberg, the play stars Sarah Tan of Singapore as Sadako, Ki Seung Rhee as her father and her friend, Kenji, and Catrina Huynh-Weiss as her mother and the spirit of her grandmother. 7:30 p.m. FMI and tickets ($12). Continues through April 14.

Friday at the Fitzgerald: “The War That Changed Us: Songs & Stories from WW1 America.” A prelude to the History Center’s “WW1 America” exhibit, this live stage show is hosted by Dan Chouinard, with a stellar lineup of guest speakers and musicians including storyteller Kevin Kling, explorer and author Ann Bancroft, author Patricia Hampl, U of M epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm, MIT history professor Chris Capozzola, vocalists Arne Fogel and Maria Jette, and a nine-piece band featuring Butch Thompson, Peter Ostroushko and Dave Karr. Co-presented by MPR and the Minnesota Historical Society, it will be recorded and edited for later broadcast. 7 p.m. FMI and tickets ($23-50).

Friday and Saturday at the Ted Mann: Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus Spring Concert: “Hand in Hand.” Not one, but two gay men’s choruses will perform at this event – over 200 voices. For the first time in 24 years, TCGMC will share its stage with another LGBT chorus, Kansas City’s Heartland Men’s Chorus. The program includes the area premiere of “Tyler’s Suite,” dedicated to the memory of a young musician who died by suicide after being bullied by his college roommate. The nine movements were written by nine composers including Ann Hampton Callaway and Stephen Schwartz. 8 p.m. both nights. FMI and tickets ($25-53).

Saturday at the History Center: “If WW1 Was a Bar Fight with Kevin Kling.” Also part of “WW1 America.” Kling narrates a theatrical version of the Internet meme that reimagines the war as a fight among belligerent bar patrons. (Example: “Russia and Serbia look at Austria. Austria asks Serbia who it’s looking at.”) 2 p.m. FMI and tickets ($16). Also Saturday, April 22, at 2 p.m.

Saturday at Hopkins High School: Maria Schneider and the JazzMN Orchestra. In February, the five-time Grammy winning composer (and Windom native) gave a beautiful, emotional performance at the O’Shaughnessy with her orchestra. She’s back to lead our own JazzMN Orchestra in several of her compositions. As artist-in-residence, she has spent the week working with the musicians of JazzMN, customizing her music to feature their talents. The concert will also include the debut performance of a new work by trumpeter Adam Meckler and tributes to Ella Fitzgerald and Al Jarreau. FMI and tickets ($31-37 adults, $10-20 students).

Otis Moss III

Tuesday (April 11) at Westminster Town Hall Forum: Otis Moss III: “Building the Beloved Community.” Moss is senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama’s church home when he was an Illinois senator. Known as “the jazz-influenced pastor with a hip-hop vibe” (Jet), he preaches a message of love and justice. Noon. Free and open to the public; no ticket or RSVP required. Arrive a half-hour early for live music; stay after for food and conversation.

On April 6, 1917, a Minneapolis congressman joined a group of like-minded colleagues in opposing one of the most consequential measures to come before the U.S. Congress during its entire history. On that day, 100 years ago, Fifth District Rep. Ernest Lundeen was one of 50 House members who voted against President Woodrow Wilson’s resolution declaring war on Germany.

Minnesota Historical SocietyFifth District Rep. Ernest Lundeen

Earlier, during a marathon House session, which began the previous afternoon, Lundeen told his fellow legislators that he had polled his Fifth District constituents about the pending congressional action. Of those responding, an overwhelming majority opposed the war declaration, Lundeen reported.

The Minneapolis congressman entered messages in opposition to the Wilson resolution into the Congressional Record from dozens of community leaders, including the head of the Minneapolis Trades and Labor Assembly, the president of the Minneapolis Bible Institute and more than 30 local clergymen.

Yet, the following day, the Minneapolis Tribune made no mention of these Fifth District residents when it reported on Lundeen’s vote. Under a headline declaring “Lundeen Condemned by Constituents,” the paper’s report only included statements from Minnesotans who supported the war and opposed Lundeen’s stance.

OAS_AD("Middle");Concerted media efforts

The Tribune article marked the start of concerted efforts by the state’s mainstream media, encouraged by officials at the highest level of the state and federal government, to suppress any dissent or even substantive discussion about a war that would eventually claim the lives of more than 2,000 Minnesotans. America’s short-lived engagement in World War I, lasting only a year and half, coincided with an era of civil liberties suppression, in Minnesota and elsewhere throughout the U.S., equaled only during the McCarthy years after the end of World War II.

In this state, efforts to clamp down on dissent began even before war was declared on April 6. During late winter and early spring months of 1917, as the prospects for war increased, loyalist organizations sprung up in Minnesota to press their cause with the state’s elected officials. Part of the so-called “liberty league” network, these local organizations began calling for statewide surveillance of labor and ethnic groups whose loyalty to the U.S. was suspect — at least in the eyes of the liberty leagues.

Commission given virtually unchecked powers

Agitation by the loyalist groups led to the creation of a new state agency during the final weeks of the 1917 legislative session known as the Commission of Public Safety. The seven-member commission was given virtually unchecked powers to suspend civil and political liberties during wartime. These powers included the authority to remove local elected officials from public office if their loyalties were suspect. While the new state agency was chaired, at least officially, by Minnesota’s governor, Joseph Burnquist, the prime mover on the commission was the fiery John McGee, an extreme loyalist who was determined to stamp out any wartime dissent that he equated with treason.

Minnesota Historical SocietyJohn McGee

Later in the year, the Minnesota commission got explicit federal backing for its efforts with the passage of 1917 Espionage Act, which made “casual or impulsive disloyal utterances” a federal crime. The legislation received firm but tempered backing from Woodrow Wilson, who had been viewed as an enlightened, progressive leader during his first term as president. While Wilson used high-minded idealism to justify his domestic and international policies, the president made clear that any public dissent about the war and its aims was not acceptable to him and to his administration.

New Ulm officials removed

In Minnesota, the Commission of Public Safety received widespread attention when it removed New Ulm’s mayor, Louis Fritsche, and its city attorney, Albert Pfaender, from office because of the their public statements about the military draft at a large rally in their hometown. Fritsche and Pfaender, whose German-American heritage reflected New Ulm’s ethnicity, were careful to urge support for the draft laws then in place, but they did raise concerns about the draft’s constitutionality and they called for congressional legislation to permit German-American draftees to avoid direct military combat on the war’s western front.

The commission’s specific actions may have been limited in scope, but they fostered a climate of opinion in Minnesota that encouraged fierce repression of any public expressions that were considered insufficiently loyal to the Allied cause. Political figures — including Minneapolis Mayor Thomas Van Lear and former Rep. Charles Lindbergh Sr., a gubernatorial candidate in 1918 — were both vilified by the loyalists and the mainstream press because they had voiced some skepticism about the war and its aims before and after the April 6 congressional declaration. In Lindbergh’s case, he was hung in effigy, his organization was denied permits to hold public rallies, and several of his campaign workers were beaten and nearly killed by angry mobs.

The abrupt end of the war with the armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, led to the dismantling of the Commission of Public Safety in Minnesota. On a national level, persecution of suspected radicals and anarchists continued during the infamous Palmer raids conducted by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in 1919 and 1920.

Today, the World War I centenary provides an opportunity to look back at a troubling time when Minnesota abandoned, at least temporarily, a commitment to the ideals of free expression that provide the foundation for democratic governance. That disturbing period needs to be remembered now that this country’s political system is facing new threats in the 21st century.

“Hidden Figures” may have not won awards at the Oscars this year, but it’s definitely picked up widespread attention as one of the year’s most thought-provoking movies. Set during the 1960s space race, “Hidden Figures” tells the story of the amazing contributions of three unsung African-American women mathematicians and their game-changing work for NASA. As incredible as the story is, I wish we could say such figures are well represented in technical and tech-focused industries today. But that is far from true.

As we move toward a job economy where technological skills are increasingly favored, if not essential, women still hold only 26 percent of those jobs. In fact, some 60 years after the women of "Hidden Figures" fought male-dominated workplaces and societal norms for deserved recognition, there still remains an incredible amount of work to be done to help young women and the U.S. workforce truly flourish.

The United States has a persistent gender cap in technical fields and it’s time to take action. If we don’t, women will continue to be left behind in the evolving workplace and employers will miss out on the rich diversity of ideas, skills and approaches women bring to their chosen fields. So what can, and more important, should be done?

Validate technical career paths earlier for young girls

Initiatives to promote STEM to high-school-aged girls have grown in recent years, but we need to expose girls to the idea and prospects of technical and industrial careers at much earlier ages. Research shows girls as young as 9 or 10 will begin the process of self-selecting out of technical subjects.

Thanks to a complex mixture of gendered societal barriers including peer group pressure, parental attitudes and their own personal beliefs about what girls should study, girls begin to perform poorly in math and science when they internalize the belief that they lack the skill or aptitude to succeed. By the time they reach high school, the gap has widened and many girls explore career paths that tap into other skill sets, usually those more traditionally associated with femininity and women.

Show that STEM careers benefit society

One way to counteract traditional gender role stereotyping is to show young girls there are many ways to make the world a better place, traditionally a motivating factor in girls’ career choices. They don’t have to be teachers, caregivers and nonprofit professionals to do that; they can also make an impact by being architects, engineers and auto mechanics.

Maggie Whitman

Many technical industries today are showcasing their more altruistic initiatives to do just that; engineers without borders spotlights global engineering support in Third World countries and smart ideas like The Lift Garage aim to help people out of poverty by providing free auto service and car repair; and programs like the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture offer innovative home design for the homeless. The future must in some ways be about reframing STEM careers as beneficial to society.

Change the nature of visible role models

As educators, parents and workers we also must show our girls and young women a more diverse array of technically qualified and workplace-experienced role models. They’re familiar with the idea of women doctors, researchers and lab workers, but less so with industrial career choices. Engineering, construction, welding, electrical and HVAC are all booming career paths, but are almost invisible to girls considering future careers.

We need more industry role models who visit schools and present these less traditional career paths as valid, viable and everyday career options in today’s world. Technical and STEM-oriented summer camps can help too. Rosie’s Girls camp, inspired by Rosie the Riveter, is a partnership between Dunwoody College of Technology and local Girl Scouts troops to give girls a hands on experience with technology, problem solving and leadership skills in a girls-centric environment.

Experiential, single-gender classes

At Dunwoody we’ve pioneered an approach to technical education that sees our faculty provide both a rigorous academic instruction with immersive, ongoing experience of the tools, techniques and labs that provide experience of real workplaces in multiple industries. This approach is spreading to other schools too, where the goal is simple: prepare all students but especially young women with a working familiarity of the workplace to create comfort and the confidence to begin making real contributions on their first day of employment. At our college, this approach is resulting in 98 percent graduate employment in chosen fields.

Some high schools are also experimenting with opt-in single-gender classes in subjects such as automotive and engineering to encourage girls who are intimidated by male-dominated classrooms and topics. This isn’t a return to the gender-bias of teaching earlier generations, thankfully, but it is one more step in understanding that we need to be more attuned to the societal barriers many girls and young women still face when encountering math, science and more technical STEM topics and career opportunities.

Maggie Whitman is the women’s enrollment coordinator at Dunwoody College of Technology, Minneapolis. She can be contacted at mwhitman@dunwoody.edu.

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More on the attorney who killed the runner. Says Paul Walsh in the Strib, “The motorist who fatally ran over a runner in a St. Paul crosswalk was actively using his cellphone for nearly 23 minutes, an uninterrupted span of time that includes the moment of impact, according to a forensic search of his phone cited in a court document filed last week.”

Says Frederick Melo in the PiPress, “A short time after the Frank Baker settlement was approved, during a Wednesday public hearing on a grant for police body cameras, things grew heated as a St. Paul City Council member walked out while a disabled school social worker addressed the council with concerns. ‘We’re going to pay out $2 million because somebody didn’t do the right thing to a person in our community?’ said Katy Cummins-Bakko, addressing the council. … ‘I’m embarrassed to say I’m from the city that kills the most people in our state,” she said. As she was speaking, council member Dan Bostrom — a former St. Paul police officer and the father of former Ramsey County Sheriff Matt Bostrom — stood up and left the room, drawing outrage from Cummins-Bako and other audience members.”

The AP says, “A southern Minnesota woman has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for plotting to kill her ex-husband. Forty-two-year-old Blanche Wilson of Le Sueur was sentenced Wednesday for conspiracy to commit murder. She will have to spend at least nine years in prison before she is eligible for supervised release. Wilson and her mother, Linda Bloom of Cleveland, Minnesota, were accused last June of enlisting an undercover officer to kill Wilson's ex-husband after he won custody of the couple's three children.”

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As you might expect, The Intercept looks (very) unfavorably on the Minnesota legislature’s latest attempt to get tough with protestors.Says Zaid Jilani, “Minnesota’s House of Representatives voted on Monday to stiffen penalties for protesters who block traffic on highways and other roadways. The move was seen as a response to recent highway blockades in the state utilized by Black Lives movement demonstrators to protest the police shooting of unarmed African-American men.”

Can’t hurt. For the Brainerd Dispatch Maureen McMullen reports, “The Minnesota House and Gov. Mark Dayton want to provide the University of Minnesota with an additional $14 million over two years to help train physicians to work in greater Minnesota. The state funding would replace a portion of the revenue generated by nonprofit insurance provider UCare. … The state Legislature barred UCare from selling Medicaid patients insurance starting in 2016. That decision led to lost profits and loss of funding for the family medicine department.”

Not good. Says Dave Orrick in the PiPress, “A fisherman was killed Friday after his boat was sucked into the churning waters below a dam on the Mississippi River while he rushed to put on his life jacket near the Minnesota-Iowa border, according to police and media reports.”

Another step closer to civilization. At KSTP-TV Jay Kolls reports, “Could wine and strong beer soon be purchased in grocery stores in Minnesota? There is growing talk that possibility could be closer to reality than people might think. … The president of the Minnesota Grocers Association said they definitely want to see wine and strong beer sold in their members' outlets someday. But not this year.”

You want a 1,000-mile border wall, somebody’s gotta give up some stuff. Says John Reinan in the Strib, “At 97, you make some concessions. Mary Hennessy gave up line dancing a few years ago. But she’s not ready to give up the home she shares with her husband, Bernie, in this Winona County city of 1,600 people where she’s lived her whole life. That’s why the couple is grateful for Meals on Wheels, whose volunteers deliver two meals to their door five days a week. … The Hennessys are among the more than 50,000 Minnesota senior citizens who benefit from Meals on Wheels … Citing a responsibility to taxpayers to run government more efficiently, the Trump administration recently proposed a federal budget that calls for drastically reducing ­— or completely eliminating — programs that pay for Meals on Wheels and other nutrition services.”

Today in your precious Second Amendment rights. An actual gun guy, Bob Mokos, writes a commentary for the Forum News Service saying, “Last April, I testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in St. Paul in support of background checks for all gun sales. The gun rights activists who testified against this common sense legislation were quite concerned about a ‘slippery slope’ where the government would be able keep a database on all gun owners and eventually arrive at one's front door and confiscate any weapons. This claim, in the face of the growing gun violence problem in Minnesota and the United States, is ludicrous. However, a ‘slippery slope’ does exist and is apparently working in favor of the ‘guns everywhere’ advocates.”

Elections matter. The Forum News Service writes about the House's approval of a plan aimed at reopening a privately owned prison in western Minnesota. “Its approval in the House on Monday night assures that the measure will be considered as House and Senate conference committees consider public safety legislation. The plan calls on the Department of Corrections to purchase and operate or enter into a lease agreement to own and operate the 1,650-bed Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton. It has not held inmates since February 2010.”

And in health tech,Joe Carlson of the Strib reports, “Two Minnesota teens with type 1 diabetes are some of the first patients in the nation to start using Medtronic's new insulin pump, a first-of-its-kind machine that can predict when a person will have a diabetic emergency and automatically adjust insulin levels to prevent it. Allison Scholl, 16, of Edina, and Eleanor Hedlund, 17, of Minneapolis, recently received their new Medtronic MiniMed 670G insulin pumps after using a similar but less-advanced Medtronic pump known as the 630G..”

In the category “You don’t miss the water till the well runs dry,” a pretty solid majority of Americans tell Gallup they approve of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). As recently as Election Day, disapprovers of the ACA outnumbered approvers by 53-42 percent, according the Gallup organization.

The act has not improved in any way since then, nor have Republicans stopped calling it a disaster that is imploding or exploding or reploding.

But this week, in the latest Gallup measure of the exact same question, approval of the act is up an impressive 13 points to 55 percent, the highest the ACA has ever scored, while disapproval fell 12 points to 41 percent, a new low. Personally, I prefer the Trump plan, from the campaign, which he said would insure “everybody” and “the government will pay for it.” Still waiting for the details on that one.

In the spirit of fairness to President Trump, whom I noted the other day had a Gallup approval/disapproval rating of 36/57, by far the worst ever for a president this early in his term, I should also note that his approval rating has shown a slight recovery. The latest numbers show him at 39 percent approval/55 percent disapproval. I congratulate him.

No love for the U of M.The Associated Press has the details of the $3.2 billion education bill that passed the Minnesota House: "Republicans’ proposed $22 million for the University of Minnesota fell well short of the school’s $147.2 million proposal. ... Two-year and technical colleges in the Minnesota State system fair better under the bill, with a tuition freeze planned for next year and a decrease the year after. Four-year state institutions, not including the University of Minnesota, would see tuition rise next year and stay steady the following year."

This got ugly fast.Don Davis of the Duluth News Tribune reports Auditor Rebecca Otto cites problems with the Roseau and Hubbard county financial audits and has asked for a do-over: "[Otto] said the Hubbard and Roseau audits contain 'enough issues that they will have to have their audits totally re-done.' That is not going to happen, said Colleen Hoffman of the Thief River Falls-based Hoffman, Phillips and Knutson accounting firm that conducted those two and six other audits of Minnesota counties. 'It is absolutely a hoax; a terrible, terrible injustice,' Hoffman said."

Overflow, albeit noncommittal, crowds.Adam Belz covered last night's Minneapolis caucuses for the Star Tribune: "The meetings were the first sign of whether a young movement of progressive DFLers will dislodge established incumbents, and early indications were that challengers Jillia Pessenda in the First Ward, Jeremiah Ellison in the Fifth Ward and Mohamed Farah in the Ninth Ward all made strong showings."Related: "Scenes from a Minneapolis DFL caucus: 'Uncommitted' has a good night" [MinnPost]

Largest settlement in St. Paul history.Mara H. Gottfried at the Pioneer Press reports on the St. Paul City Council Wednesday afternoon vote on the settlement for the 53-year-old man bitten by a police K-9 and kicked by an officer: "Of the $2 million settlement that was reached, half of will go into a structured settlement annuity that will pay [Frank Arnel] Baker about $4,500 a month for his lifetime. The other $1 million will be used to pay Baker’s insurers who covered his medical expenses, attorney fees (one-third of the total settlement), legal costs and for a lump-sum payment to Baker, according to [Baker's attorney Bob] Bennett."

First they came for the skyways.Mike Mullen at City Pages notes Minneapolis is considering halting the proliferation of drive-throughs: "A staff research memo completed in late March for the city planning commission floats a number of possible directions Minneapolis could go with halting the proliferation of drive-throughs. Among them: tighter restrictions on what sort of zoning allows drive-throughs, which might shrink the number (and type) of neighborhoods where they can exist; regulating which drive-through designs are allowed; limiting drive-throughs so they only exist 'on the ground floor of a larger mixed-used development; or ... an outright citywide ban.' "